Leaders with Ginni Thomas: Russian historian Pavel Stroilov

Russia continues to tighten restrictions on political opponents of President Vladimir Putin, who approved a law last week allowing treason charges against anyone who possesses state secrets.

One such dissident, Pavel Stroilov, is a Russian historian living in London after he stole more than 50,000 secret Kremlin documents from the Gorbachev Foundation in 2003. He edited a book with Alexander Litvinenko, a critic of Putin who was poisoned in London in 2006.

One of the documents he obtained showed that a 1979 U.S. Senate delegation, led by Joe Biden, assured Soviet Union negotiators that the United States was bluffing when it expressed concerns over human rights of USSR dissidents during the Cold War.

In the interview, Stroilov alleged a Soviet connection with al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and discussed President Barack Obama’s foreign policy, the facade of the Arab Spring, whether Russia remains a threat to the United States and how modern-day Russia silences dissidents.

Note: The linked documents are dated “19-20 April 1979,” but the delegation met with USSR officials on Aug. 29, 1979, according to an Associated Press story published at the time.

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